The Ungained Height

The Ungained Height.
Gardner Weeks Wood
101-1

Gardner Weeks Wood in Harpers Monthly
If this be Life to count the languid hours
That drift as dreams from sun to setting sun;
Or, indolent, to watch the shadows run
Across some sturdier dial-stone than ours:
If Love is but to lie in breeze-swept bowers,
Whose honeyed incense drowns the prayer of
pain;
To touch, but not to take; never to gain
The pinnacles that crown Love’s ancient towers:

If uncut leaves still lock the book of youth;
If petalled roses droop before the screen
That shields the emptiness of love unearned-
Then may the wanton wake to know the truth
That Life is loss; and from the Magdalene
The Lesson of Love’s impotence be learned.